GESTE Paris was pleased to announce its second edition, Photographic Materiality, an underground exhibition of experimental photography organised by Marc Lenot, Georg Bak and Shiva Lynn Burgos from the 6th november to the 9th december. GESTE brings together vintage and contemporary works by both established and emerging artists. Like a secret speakeasy GESTE is presented in the convivial setting of a classic Parisian apartment that provides a space for reflection and dialogue. GESTE is the nexus of a private collection, artwork from leading galleries, and a selection by an author and critic’s eye.

The exhibition begins with the Bielefeld group of mainly German concrete and generative photographers such as Gottfried Jäger and Hein Gravenhorst. Their explorations in light, physics and new technologies continue to be a source of inspiration and are presented in dialogue with the works of contemporary artists who acknowledge these pioneers, such as Wolfgang Tillmans and Chris Bucklow. The show continues with further contemporary experimenters; Pierre Savatier superimposes textiles onto photo paper and manipulates light sources whilst Paula de Solminihac directly captures the shape of the vestiges of daily life by wrapping them in photographs. The chemistry of the process is tested by Shiva Lynn Burgos with her flood-altered slide film, by Pierre Cordier and Gundi Falk with their chemigrams ‘painted’ directly onto photographic emulsion and by Jean Pierre Sudre’s crystallography. The simple shadow photogram is the place where photography began and the show proposes some contemporary artists who have further developed these possibilities. Tatiana Kronberg uses photograms to record aspects of her performances and Maureen McQuillan layers her own drawings to create unique works. For Susan Derges, Garry Fabian Miller and Adam Fuss, the photogram remains a method of capturing an image, Fox Talbot’s Pencil of Nature, while for Joan Fontcuberta it is a way of challenging the photographic representation of nature with his photogram of flowers.

These are exciting times for experimental photography with new digital technology allowing new forms of experimentation whilst at the same time artists are looking at the disappearing old analogue techniques. The exhibition offers a retrospective and is a chance to see rare vintage works and to discover rising artists working in the same spirit.

Marc Lenot writes about GESTE: «This exposition shows works at the junction of two trends of contemporary photography, both at the edge of the photographic normality of standard representation: on one side, works that show not only the image represented, but also the materiality of the photograph, its physical dimension; on the other hand, works that are a testimony of the gesture of the photographer, not only an eye through the viewfinder and a finger on the shutter, but a whole person actively involved in the process of making the photograph, like a painter, a dancer, an actor... The dialogue between these two generations from the 1960’s until today provides a historical perspective, at the time of the omnipresence of digital photography.»

Marc Lenot is an art critic and a writer about photography. His most recent book is Jouer contre les Appareils (Éditions Photosynthèses) and his “Lunettes Rouges” blog is a must read for anyone interested in photography.

George Bak (SCHEUBLEIN + BAK,) is a Zurich based gallerist and together with his partner Christina Scheublein, he represents both contemporary photographers and the German generative and abstract photographers from 1950s and 60s. The gallery’s program follows their influence on the contemporary discourse around the fields of digital photography and new media.

Shiva Lynn Burgos is a contemporary artist and photographer from Brooklyn, USA currently living and working between Paris, London and Papua New Guinea. Building upon similar underground group projects that she created in New York, London and Berlin, Burgos has developed the GESTE project to further a discourse between artists, academics, critics and collectors.